《权力的游戏》涉嫌歧视黑人种族吗？

This month, the biggest TV show in the world returns for one final dragon-slaying, wall-toppling, throne-nabbing season. In the time since it last aired, memes have been shared, elaborate theories have been devised and revised, bets have been laid and cos-play outfits have been lovingly stitched. Yet there is one aspect that is yet to receive adequate attention: Game of Thrones – great show, but is it racist?

这个月，世界上最大制作的电视剧将迎来最后屠龙、翻墙、夺王位的一季。自上一季以来，人们分享各种各样的梗，精心提出、反复推敲着一套又一套的理论，下了各种赌注，并精心制作了角色扮演的服装。然而，还有一个方面尚未得到足够的关注：权力的游戏这伟大的电视剧是否涉嫌种族歧视呢？

This much should have been obvious from way back when the very first episode aired in 2011. It was clear then that showrunners David Benioff and DB Weiss envisioned their world as a white one. The majority of the action took place in Westeros, George RR Martin’s skewed spin on medieval Britain and the west, where the fair-haired, fair-skinned Lannisters engaged in a generations-long power struggle with the darker-haired, fair-skinned Starks. People of colour were not absent from the show but they were relegated to its cartographical margins. In the east, or Essos, the Dothraki people were depicted as a nomadic tribe of violent, rape-happy savages. That is until Westerosi princess Daenerys arrived and civilised them all.

从2011年第一集播出开始，这个问题就应该很明显了。制片人David Benioff和DB Weiss显然把他们的世界想象成一个白人世界。大部分故事发生在Westeros，作者George R.R. Martin以中世纪英国和西方为基础进行创作。在那里，白发、白皮肤的兰尼斯特家族与黑发、白皮肤的斯塔克斯家族进行了一代又一代的权力斗争。剧中并非没有有色人种，但他们被驱逐到了边缘位置。在东部，或者说埃索斯，多斯拉克人被描绘成一个充满暴力、以强奸为乐的野人游牧部落。一直到Westeros公主Daenerys降临使他们步入文明社会，这种状况才有所改变。

By season five, Daenerys has bagged herself a black friend (ex-slave Missandei, played by actor Nathalie Emmanuel) and has taken her conquering/liberating mission to Slaver’s Bay where she is hailed as “mhysa” (mother) by the freed slaves. 

到了第五季，Daenerys已经有了一个黑人朋友（曾是奴隶的Missandei，演员Nathalie Emmanuel饰），并带着征服和解放的使命去了奴隶湾（Slaver’s Bay），在那里她被解放的奴隶们称为“弥莎”（意为“母亲”）。

We have also been introduced to the Dornish, another dusky ethnic group from a distant land who are defined by hyper-sexualised and aggressive behaviour; you needn’t be a dedicated student of Edward Said to decipher the creeping orientalism in these plot lines. As Dr David Wearing, an international relations expert and Game of Thrones fan says, “One episode [season three’s Mhysa] ends with the blond, white Daenerys being borne aloft in gratitude by a sea of faceless people of colour, at which point we’re scarcely in the realms of interpreting subtext.”

我们同时在这一季迎来了多恩人，他们来自远方，是个被定义为过度性别化和行为激进的黑暗种族。你不必成为Edward Said的一名优秀学生才能解读出这些情节线中附带的诡异的东方主义。正如国际关系专家、《权力的游戏》粉丝David Wearing博士所言，“有一集（第三季的《弥莎》）的结尾是金发白人Daenerys被一群无面的有色人种感激地高高举起。对于这个情节，我们不难理解其中的潜台词。”

【注：Edward Said，著名巴勒斯坦文学理论家与批评家，“东方主义”的提出者。（即19世纪西方国家眼中的东方是没有真实根据，凭空相象出来的东方，西方世界对阿拉伯-伊斯兰世界的人民和文化有一种强烈的偏见）】

In 2017, all this became an official talking point when GoT’s co-creators, Benioff and Weiss, announced that their next project would be Confederate, an alternative history drama, in which the south won the American civil war and slavery never ended. The announcement was met with near-instantaneous social-media anger from activists including #OscarsSoWhite creator April Reign, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Roxane Gay, who described it as “slavery fan fiction”. The project has since been delayed indefinitely.

2017年，权游的制片人Benioff和Weiss宣布了下一部作品《美利坚联盟国》，这是一部颠覆性历史剧，剧中南部赢了美国内战且奴隶制不会终结。这时所有的一切都成了正式的话题。这一声明瞬间引起了社交媒体的公愤，包括#OscarsSoWhite的发起者April Reign, Ta-Nehisi Coates和Roxane Gay，他们称之为“奴隶制同人剧”。该剧此后一直被无限期推迟。

The backlash might not have been so severe, however, if Game of Thrones wasn’t already perceived to have a problem with diversity. A few weeks earlier, Star Wars actor John Boyega, a man with some personal experience of fandom-specific racism, brought the issue up in a GQ interview. “There are no black people on Game of Thrones,” he said. “I ain’t paying money to always see one type of person on-screen …Because you see different people from different backgrounds, different cultures, every day. Even if you’re a racist, you have to live with that.”

然而，如果权游之前未被发现存在多样性问题的话，这次人们的反应可能就没有那么激烈了。《星球大战》中的演员John Boyega曾亲身经历过饭圈专有的种族歧视，几周前他在一场GQ采访中提到了这个问题。“在《权力的游戏》中没有黑人，”他说。“我花钱不是为了天天在屏幕上只看到一种人……因为你每天都看到不同背景、不同文化的人。就算你是个种族主义者，你也得接受这一点。”

In fairness, GoT does feature two or three black actors with speaking parts, but the public rebuttals of Boyega’s point went way beyond a simple fact-check. One Forbes piece argued that while diversity is important, calling out a franchise “based entirely on British history and mythology is completely counter-productive” and, ultimately, “to the detriment of the story”. Reaction below the line and on fan threads was mostly variations on a similar theme of historical accuracy and the challenge that black actors present to the audience’s ability to suspend disbelief. Because, presumably, ice zombies and dragons are perfectly plausible, but fully rounded non-white characters would be a stretch too far?

公平地说，《权力的游戏》中确实突出了两三个有台词的黑人演员，但公众对Boyega观点的反驳远不止简单的事实核查。《福布斯》的一篇文章认为，尽管多样性很重要，但呼吁“完全基于英国历史和神话”的系列产品一定会“适得其反”，而且最终会“损害故事本身”。粉丝们在线上与线下的反应大多围绕着一个关于历史准确性和黑人让观众停止怀疑的能力的类似主题。因为按照假设，冰僵尸和龙是完全合理的，而全部是非白人角色就过分夸张了？

Although fans with a shaky understanding of medieval Europe have often claimed otherwise, Game of Thrones is fantasy, not history. The shape of its world is limited only by the imaginations of its creators and – perhaps more so – its viewers. 

尽管对中世纪欧洲不甚了解的粉丝们经常持相反观点，但《权力的游戏》是奇幻题材，而非历史。因此剧中的世界形态只受到创作者想象力的限制，也许更多的是取决于观众的想象。

That is not to say it doesn’t draw on past traditions. “Tolkien and CS Lewis were two of the largest influencers of modern English-language fantasy,” says Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games. “Both [Tolkien and Lewis] were born when the British empire was at its height, and the cartographies of their imagination were influenced accordingly. Racism in storytelling was baked into the world they came of age in; speculative fiction is almost always commenting on the contemporary concerns of a society.”

可这并不是说它不借鉴传统。宾夕法尼亚大学的副教授、《黑暗奇幻:从哈利·波特到饥饿游戏的种族与想象》一文的作者Ebony Elizabeth Thomas表示：“Tolkien和CS Lewis是对现代英文奇幻小说影响最大的两个人。他们都出生在大英帝国的鼎盛时期，所以各自的创作都受到当时历史背景的影响，叙事中的种族主义来自于他们成长的世界。推理小说几乎总是在评论当代的社会热点。”

Since our society’s contemporary concerns include diversity and representation, it makes sense that Game of Thrones would be gradually moving in that direction. The cast list for HBO’s upcoming prequel includes three black British actors (Naomi Ackie, Sheila Atim, Ivanno Jeremiah) and some cite Daenerys’s season six soul-searching as evidence of the GoT writers’ engagement with a wider debate. Wearing, though, is unconvinced: “Often it amounts to little more than ‘crying while shooting’, where the critiques are fairly superficial and leave many deeper assumptions untouched.”

由于当代的社会关注的多样性和代表性，《权力的游戏》逐渐朝着这个方向发展是有可能的。即将在HBO上映的“权游前传”的演员名单中包括三位英国黑人演员(Naomi Ackie,  Sheila Atim和 Ivanno Jeremiah)，一些人认为Daenerys在第六季中对自我灵魂的追寻说明《权力的游戏》的编剧们进行了更广泛的讨论。不过，Wearing博士并不相信这一点：“通常，这只不过是‘边拍边哭’，批评相当肤浅，没有触及许多深层次的设想。”

What if we do want to get at those deeper assumptions? Is it even possible? Thomas sees “the project of emancipating the dark fantastic” as her favourite genre’s greatest challenge. “Fantasy is created from the depths of a creative’s imagination … It is a very vulnerable thing to do and, thus, fantasy writers are protective of their creations. That’s understandable. But the act of ‘mythopoesis’ – making your own myths – is one that requires much thought. And still you may not see everything.” 

如果我们就是想要得到那些更深层次的设想呢？这可能吗？Thomas把“黑暗幻想释放项目”看作她最喜欢的作品类型所面临的最大挑战。“奇幻故事是从创意者最深的幻想中创造出来的... 这是一部脆弱的作品，所以奇幻故事的作家保护他们的创作成果是可以理解的。但“神话创作”，即自创神话，需要深思熟虑。但就算这样你可能还是没法考虑周全。

There’s a reason why some of George RR Martin’s fantasy successors (Keira Drake, Laurie Forest, Kosoko Jackson) have recently been subject to Confederate-esque online backlash from early readers regarding “racist” tropes in their work. “We can have the best of intentions, but unless we’re thinking deeply about the fantasy worlds that we build, we will re-inscribe the cartographies of the known world into our stories,” says Thomas.

George RR Martin的奇幻故事继承者们（Keira Drake, Laurie Forest, Kosoko Jackson) 最近因为他们作品中的“种族歧视”修辞而受到了老读者的群喷，这是情有可原的。Thomas说“我们的意图是好的，但除非我们仔细思考我们创造的世界，否则我们会把已知世界重新刻入故事。”

Maybe we wouldn’t want to completely detach GoT from our messy, postcolonial reality, even if it were possible. “The beautiful part about the show is that it is reflective of the real world,” says Michael Harriot, columnist for Afrocentric online magazine the Root and co-host of YouTube fan show Dem Thrones. “Daenerys is basically the embodiment of white privilege. She is inches away from becoming the powerful woman in the world simply because someone gave her some dragons at birth. As a black person, if this upset me, then I would also be upset with every historically accurate show about politics, war, society and culture.” 

也许即使可行，我们也不想完全把“权游”从复杂的、后殖民时代的生活中脱离出来。以非洲为中心的网络杂志the Root的专栏作家，兼YouTube粉丝节目Dem Thrones的搭档主持人Michael Harriot说：“这部剧可贵之处在于它能反映现实世界。”“Daenerys基本上就是白人特权的化身。她距离成为全世界最强大的女性只有几步之遥，仅仅是因为她出生时有人送了她一些龙。我作为一名黑人，如果这一点让我不开心了，那所有在政治、战争、社会和文化上历史正确的剧都会让我不开心了。

Harriot’s Thrones love has extended as far as outlining his alternative reading of the show as an all-encompassing analogy for white America circa the 2016 election: Daenerys is Hillary Clinton, the Lannisters are the Trumps, dragons are white privilege and the blue-eyed devil White Walkers are the “alt-right”. It’s as persuasive as it is funny. “I’m not a fan of colonialism and imperialism, but I must admit that it is entertaining. In the same way that I’m not a fan of being stabbed but I still enjoy watching a movie with a good sword fight.”

Harriot非常爱“权游”，以至于延伸出对它的另一种解读，他把这部剧类比成美国2016年总统选举：Daenerys是希拉里·克林顿，Lannister家族是特朗普家族，龙是白人特权而蓝眼白鬼是另类右翼。这说法既有趣也很有说服力。“我不喜欢殖民主义和帝国主义，但我必须承认这很有意思。就像我不喜欢被刀捅，但我还是很喜欢看斗剑很帅的电影。”

And while Harriot acknowledges that more black and non-white cast members would be nice, he still feels represented in some ways. “I refer to the Starks as ‘our cousins’. [Jon Snow] wears the dopest cape or coats and is always willing to posse up. I feel like his theme song is [Atlanta crunk anthem] Knuck If You Buck and he will eventually open a barbershop on the west side of Westeros and live the rest of his life in peace. But most of all, I like him because, no matter what you threaten him with, he refuses to bend the knee.”

虽然Harriot承认有更多黑人和非白人的角色出现会更好，但他还是觉得有些角色有自己的影子。“我把斯塔克斯家族称为我们的兄弟姐妹”（Jon Snow）穿最帅的斗篷或者外套，而且时刻愿意上战场。我觉得他的角色歌曲应该是Knuck If You Buck，而且总有一天他会在Westeros的西边开家理发店，然后平淡地过完一生。但我喜欢他主要还是因为：不管你怎么威胁他，他都拒绝屈服。”